EDO4427 - Colliton Park, Dorchester; trial trench 1948

A trial trench was excavated by Miss P. A. M. Keef in March 1948, following observations of a number of features during the construction of a brick retaining wall at Colliton Park, Dorchester, in December 1947. The trench was dug at right angles to the main exposed section and revealed the remains of a wall associated with a plaster floor. Beneath this floor were traces of an earlier floor in which there was a hearth or burnt patch containing a fragment of late Iron Age pottery. Below the level of the floor was a small unlined oven of roughly pear-shaped form which was cut into the undisturbed natural sub-soil. This oven, considered to be a corn-drying oven, was filled with dark earth containing fragments of RB coarseware and a rounded stone slab in the bottom. (1)